


Nightmare on Elizabeth St.

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: due South
Genre: Community: ds_flashfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Ben said, "I'd like to be a Mountie for Halloween, grandmother."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare on Elizabeth St.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Halloween challenge and first posted October 28, 2003.

Her mother waited until dinner, the day after they arrived, to directly acknowledge Ben. When Caroline had finished cutting his food and Ben had a mouthful of meatloaf, Anna Pinsent peered across the table at him and said, "Well, Ben, what kind of Halloween costume would you like?"

Caroline tensed, knowing her mother too well to think her timing was coincidental, knowing from experience that being three and a half would be no excuse, but by some miracle Ben remembered. He clapped one hand over his mouth, tilting his head to the side in thought as he continued chewing. Caroline swallowed her own bite of food with effort, silently willing Ben to remember what she'd told him about dressing up for Halloween while they were visiting her mother. During their last visit, Ben had been two years old and quite cheerfully mute. Her mother had spent the entire week speculating about whether he had some sort of cold-induced brain damage, or if idiocy ran in the Fraser family.

Ben lowered his hand, smiled sweetly, and said, "I'd like to be a Mountie for Halloween, grandmother."

Caroline didn't look away from Ben, watched his smile falter slightly at whatever he saw on his grandmother's face. She should have seen this coming; Ben had seen his father, Buck, and Gerard in dress uniform for the first time not a fortnight before they left. They'd been home to bury that new constable, Hayworth, and Ben had been too fascinated by the red serge and medals to wonder where the man had gone. Caroline hadn't thought further than to be glad of the distraction, at the time.

She smiled at Ben, drawing his attention to herself, willing him not to look across the table again. "Ben, honey, maybe you'd like to be something else."

Ben looked puzzled. "But, Mama, you said I could be anything I wanted."

Caroline braced herself, against Ben's entreating look before her, and the icy silence behind. "I know I did, Ben, but--"

In a flash, pleading changed to stubbornness, and Ben gave her a look of such perfect resolve that Caroline half expected his next words to be, "I know it's the baby's first Christmas, but I have to go." But this was Ben, her baby, and he wanted smaller things. "I want a Mountie costume, Mama."

Caroline shut her eyes, and realized she couldn't manage a three-year-old when she was being made to feel like a child herself. "Ben," she said, firmly, when she opened her eyes again, "we will discuss this in the other room. You may be excused."

Ben frowned, but he didn't argue, and got down from his chair as gracefully as he could be expected to. Caroline watched him leave the dining room, and then, only then, looked in her mother's direction as she laid her hands flat on the linen tablecloth, acutely conscious of its smoothness under her rough hands. "Mother, I apologize. If you'll excuse me a moment?"

Caroline watched her mother's mouth tighten into a familiar moue of distaste, and observed the ridiculousness of a grown woman, married with a child of her own, waiting her mother's permission to leave the table. Ridiculous, but still she was frozen to the spot until she saw that small nod, and she walked slowly from the room rather than running, snatching up Ben and throwing him in the truck and driving all night.

She paused a moment in the hallway, til that impulse passed. Bob wouldn't understand, had never understood how silence could be worse than his own disapproving parents' constant complaints. Caroline didn't know how to tell him that, for all they said, his parents still visited every other month to see their good-for-nothing son's wife and child. She didn't know how to say _at least they're here_ without saying_ more than you are_.

She squared her shoulders, then, and continued down the hallway. Ben was the one who counted, and she had to find a way to smooth this over with him.

As soon as she walked into the guest room, Ben looked up at her and said, "Mama, why can't I be a Mountie?"

A perfectly reasonable question, but what could she say? _Mounties aren't welcome in this house_ or _She won't tolerate your father and scarcely tolerates you..._ She couldn't say anything that would steal the light in his eyes, that would tarnish the wonder she'd seen on his face at the sight of red serge tunics and shining leather boots.

Caroline knelt on the floor before her son, and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Listen to me, Ben. Do you know what Mounties do?"

He nodded vigorously. "Important work. Far away."

She smiled, because she had to. "That's right, they do very important work. There are men who do bad things, who hurt people, who make it dangerous for other people, for mothers and children. Mounties find those people and make sure they're punished, so that everyone can be safe. And they do whatever they have to, go wherever they have to, to make sure that bad men can't hurt people. So whenever anyone sees a Mountie's uniform, they know that the man wearing it is very brave, a hero, and they respect the uniform because they know what it stands for." Ben's eyes were wide, but he nodded his understanding, and Caroline took a breath. "So, Ben, the uniform isn't something to play with, or pretend to, even for Halloween, do you understand?"

There was pride in his eyes, then, and she knew that for the first time Ben understood what it was for his father to be a Mountie, knew that it meant something more than being away from your little boy all the time. "I understand, Mom. I'll be something else for Halloween."

She saw it on his face, and though he'd never spoken the words before, she knew they were coming, and her stomach tightened in anticipation. "I'm going to be a Mountie for real, though, when I grow up."

She forced a smile through the rush of tears, and hugged Ben close, so he wouldn't see them fall.


End file.
